Resilience is one of the key research thematics of Positive Psychology, thanks to which we now know that it is a set of characteristics and skills cultivated in order to experience positive emotions, positive thinking, making sense of our lives and forming positive narratives about them. But just as every positive sign finds its own meaning alongside – and in opposition to – a negative one, so too the search for that much-needed resilience shares its beginnings with its opposite. It is indeed impossible to investigate something adequately only in conditions of its presence rather than its absence; everything we know, we know it thanks to its capacity on occasion both to exist and to be absent.
If our journey is therefore to be one of resilience, its starting point can only be the acceptance of vulnerability and the pain it often entails.
The question that naturally arises after this realization is what our destination will be like, if our journey starts with resistance, avoidance or denial of vulnerability and suffering – as something undesirable, unnecessary or even harmful to us; it is, after all, the way we learn to see emotional sensitivity and distress as children, by observing those around us (and not necessarily just by listening to the views they verbally attempt to instill in us), unaware that it is a building block of our development:
- In physiological terms, pain and healing are inextricably linked: the neuropeptides that make the sensation of pain in our nervous system felt are also the ones that accelerate cell reproduction in wounded areas resulting in their healing.
- The proper functioning of the human brain depends equally on neuronic birth (neurogenesis) and the formation of synapses among them (synaptogenesis), as well as their apoptosis (their “death”, their numerical reduction).
- In addition, both oblivion and bereavement are of critical importance in psychodynamic therapy, in order for clients to further the development of healthy personality functions.
- In other psychotherapeutic interventions the client’s healing occurs through the processing of trauma; it cannot happen outside of or in contrast to it.
- Prevailing local philosophical schools and holistic medical practices in human history have treated resistance to change as the root cause of diseases of both body and mind.
Evidently by accepting what has happened to us, and what will inevitably happen to us in the future, we begin our mental and emotional empowerment. But when it comes to the mental empowerment of children, who learn by observing us and not just listening to us, there are four beneficial habits we can adopt in our daily lives that will lay the foundation early on for the very understanding that we are often called upon to achieve from scratch in adulthood:
- We need to allow children to see and process our sorrows, disappointments and all kinds of emotional distress with us. It is necessary for them to develop feelings of security and trust in parents, teachers and caregivers who do not experience joy only, or growing up they will react with anxiety to any emotional experience that deviates from it.
- We need to help children understand that the unpleasant event – pain, loss, frustration, distress, grief – is not the defining part of a relationship or journey but an equal part of it. They need to understand the connection between the event, the before and after, and be able to think about the latter in particular – to plan for it, to look forward to it even. when the challenge/ difficulty is over.
- We need to show children “it’s okay” in action – not merely repeat it to them. Depending on their age we can respond with a smile to their crying (instead of reinforcing it by reflecting back their distress) and turn their attention elsewhere (ideally to something tangible available from the “before” or “after” of the previous point that connects them to the present – as infants cannot process something that is not in their physical presence); in preschool and later childhood years we can go further, by helping them understand the challenging event as part of a continuum, as something normal that has happened before and will happen again in the same or similar form to them and/ or other people around them, and encouraging them by example to show courage and patience.
- We need to help children verbally express what they are experiencing, whether it is euphoria or discomfort. It is easy to overlook this need when faced with a child who is calm and happy. It is necessary for him/ her, however, to understand that sadness and joy are equally worthy of attention, by strengthening his/ her perception, attention, processing, memorization and recall of both emotional categories of events in his/ her daily life accordingly. Through this (s)he constructs his/ her first internal representations of both the world and his/ her own place in it – two constants that are not at the mercy of circumstances, alternating moods and transient challenges.
The journey to resilience can begin at any age. However, as we have implicitly “stated” with our coaching approach, the most effective empowerment processes of adult life are usually not substantially different from those by which we have learnt and embraced the most important lessons of childhood. These first lessons of acceptance for our children are essentially our best chances to face our own “demons”, both young and old – just like children, we too have a long future ahead of us, one worth pursuing with all our might.